


Lightning Strikes

by 3amepiphany



Series: Starlight Lanes AU [3]
Category: Wander Over Yonder
Genre: Gen, Other, bowling, nobody messes with the jesus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-19
Updated: 2016-06-19
Packaged: 2018-07-15 23:23:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7243039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3amepiphany/pseuds/3amepiphany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pound for pound... for a pound. Just a tip, haha, I can't list any more innuendos with a straight face, sorry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lightning Strikes

**Author's Note:**

> Update art by Avocadosatapogee now up! http://avocadosatapogee.tumblr.com/post/146182837957/teehee-balls Be sure to visit them and give them some love - they work hard on this AU too!

Peepers sat down, shooting finger guns at Sylvia as she got up to close out her game.

Rolling her eyes, she grabbed her ball from the return and didn’t waste much time taking the shot. And in the end it didn’t really matter; she hooked hard and left two pins wiggling about, ready to fall but very obviously not going to. She turned to him and returned his finger guns enthusiastically. He nodded, putting up his hands and slow-clapping it out. They were tied, nearly frame for frame give or take a pin here and a pin there. She high-fived Wander as she sat down, and they watched Hater get up to take his final frame.

The other Watchdogs on their team hooted and hollered, but Peepers was pretty expressionless as the roll produced (consistently, at least) another gutterball, for a score of zero. They applauded, and he sat down with a small huff.

Wander got up to take his last turn, and let the ball go too early; it thwumped onto the lane and rolled down at such an excruciatingly slow speed that everyone had time to finish their drinks and look around for their shoes and bags before it got even remotely close to the pins. The ball knocked down the 7 and then wobbled off to the left into the gutter behind the setup, and everyone paused. Wander was on the board. But he turned back to everyone with a sad look on his face - Sylvia gave him a confused look and he tried his best to turn it into a sincere smile. “Hater, you beat me. You beat me by a pin,” he said. And everyone almost wanted him to repeat that. Hater put a hand up in a gesture that was supposed to convey his bewilderment and Wander came right over to shake it without a second thought. Maybe not even a first, it seemed. “I mean, I knew you were good and all but wowee! You successfully kept from knockin’ down a single pin the whole game and I am _so_ impressed at that kind of trick skill!”

Everyone exchanged glances, waiting for Hater’s response. He only shrugged, and said, “Yeah, I hear that a lot.”

Peepers was willing to take that. He motioned for everyone to get ready to split while the mood was still good, and approached Sylvia as she was removing her shoes. “Well.”

“Well, hmm?”

“What do you think about joining the Harbingers this season?”

“If you’ve got room for two more players, I’ll think about it. I’ll have to talk to Wander, though.”

“That’s seven players, though, we might be able to slide with six, but I don’t think--” he backed up a few steps as she stood, putting her hands on her hips and staring down at him.

“You can have substitutes. We may not even be able to make the actual games most of the time, anyways, depending on when they are. But if you want to cap at five, that’s fine with me, I’m sure we can find three more players and up your competition.” She looked over at Wander, who had quietly put his ball back over on the racks along the wall and was trying to wrestle hers off of the return to take it back, too. “Here, buddy, you can take the shoes back to the counter, I’ll get this.”

“You got it, Syl!” he said, nabbing their shoes and taking off with them. Peepers watched him go before looking up at her with a bit of resignation in his eye.

“Let me discuss it with the guys. We might be able to work something out.”

As they were headed back to the bus stop, Wander was just one big fuzzy smile. “I’m really glad we decided to do that, Sylvia, thank you for indulgin’ me. Do you think we can be ‘Harbingers of Boom’? They’re awfully good. Mister Peepers, especially. He is surprisingly good at sports. Do you remember that day at the rec center we saw him fencin’? Like somethin’ out of a swashbucklin’ film?”

“I do,” she said, “You know, if worse comes to worse, it’ll only take a different form and a look around for some extra players. We can have our own fun.”

“Yeah,” Wander agreed, tipping his cap back a bit. “but think about how much fun it’d be to be on a team with people we already know. And Syl, I see it in your face, I know you’re kind of expectin’ another incident like the rec center but I think this is our chance to make it right with them, and kinda maybe them with us, too.”

They went back the following week, and as Sam helped them with their shoe rental this time, he also got them copies of the league rulebooks explaining that practice schedules and games would come after the drafting was closed, and offered to help them out if they decided to start their own team. They grabbed the same lane they had used before, and they started in on trying to teach Wander how to bowl. An hour later was the start of the weekend league block, and as Sylvia watched Wander try to figure out how best to come at the foul line, she felt someone come up behind her. It was Jeff. She greeted him with a handshake.

“Back again, I see,” he said, sitting down to put his own bowling shoes on, drink in hand. “Not much for the weeknight practices?”

“We haven’t really cleared our personal schedules on the weeknights to accommodate this hobby yet,” she said. Wander shuffled up to the line again, sort of like a dancer off his choreography timing. He did some sort of weird step-ball-change and then froze, one arm in the air and the other bent akimbo behind him. He was likely to get tangled in that giant yellow shirt. They were going to have to make sure he ordered one that would fit him properly.

“But you’re interested, and that’s a good start.”

“We might be joining the Harbingers’ team, we’re not entirely sure yet. So if you’re here to recruit me and kingpin here, I’m sorry. He’s kind of got his heart set on playing with them.”

Jeff nodded, sitting back and saying, “I can respect that. You’re not joining the ladies’ league?”

“I didn’t have plans to. Do they need new members?”

“Almost always.” Jeff had to stifle a small laugh as Wander backed up again, this time working on his swing and release. This was like some sort of calisthenics gone wrong.

“I don’t know,” Sylvia said nonchalantly. “Maybe. I do tend to dive nose-first into things once the competition gains hold of me. It’s possible.”

“They practice on Thursdays, if you want to check them out before the drafting closes.” He stood as Wander came back over to take a sip of his soda and actually get his ball for this frame. He put his hand out and introduced himself. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Tipping his cap and shaking Jeff’s hand enthusiastically, Wander said, “Hiya, it sure is nice to meet you. Syl’s Gran was very excited to hear that we’d run into you and picked up bowlin’. So excited she was usin’ some pretty adult language about ya.” Sylvia snorted quietly, trying not to laugh about that aloud, at least not at the moment. Gran had gotten on the phone with them the next day after getting home from playing bingo at the legion hall, and she couldn’t turn the speaker capability off when Gran started cussing. Wander took it all with a straight face and a tight smile, shrugging as she silently mouthed “I’m sorry” at him.

“Ha, wow, yeah, that sounds like Sophia. Boy. Well. I sure hope to see you guys stick it out in the season, I hear Miss Zbornak here’s got a mean hook that I’ll need to watch out for. Can I ask what the weight is on your ball there?”

“Oh, it’s not very heavy,” Wander said, reaching for it and hefting it up. “Eight pounds? I’m just a little guy, it’s not much.”

“I know it’ll be tough at first, but have you tried throwing a ten-pound ball? That might make a difference in your pitch and keep up the speed of your throw once it’s down the lane a bit.”

Wander regarded this for a moment, and then went over to the wall to go return that ball and bring back a new one at the ten-pound mark. It was a big heavier but it wasn’t a strain; he looked over at Sylvia, who shrugged and made a motion for him to try it out. So he turned and squared himself away, and bowled.

He hit four pins, with the 1 tilting just a bit as the ball hooked around behind it.

Jeff laughed. “There you go. You felt that difference, though, didn’t you?”

Wander laughed, too. “A bit, yeah! It seemed like I had to put more focus on lettin’ it go properly instead of just tossin’ it like a beach ball. Thank you. I’ll work with this one today and we’ll see if it makes a difference.” The ball popped up out of the return and Wander took it up again to finish the frame. This time it went straight into that little pocket he’d created, and no new pins went down. He shrugged, and turned to thank Jeff again, and shake his hand one more time.

“Ah. Alright. You’ll have to excuse me, I see members of my team showing up.” He took his leave to go meet them; one was a short gentlemen about the same height as Peepers, and with the same strange beard-like face as Jeff. Another was tall, green, and sort of grumpy looking, and he carried a bucket of chicken with him in one hand and what looked like a walking stick in the other. Most of the same group he’d been bowling with the week prior. Sylvia decided that now would be a great time to put in an order for a pizza and soda at the cafe and to get a beer from the bar for herself, and Wander sat down and waited to see who else would be coming to practice this evening, wondering what time Peepers and Hater would show up, too.

As Sylvia approached the bar, she noticed Ryder wasn’t in tonight. She asked the bartender if he showed up regularly, and did he actually bowl?

He did, and the bartender said he might, but that they never really saw him take a lane.

She moseyed on back with a pitcher each of water and soda, and her own drink to see Wander chatting with the group in the lane on their right, and she sighed. Those biceps were unmistakable. The hot pink jumpsuit with the tigrex print was new, though. “Awesome,” she grumbled, approaching. 

“Hey, Syl! Hey, remember Awesome from the rec center gym?” Wander thanked her for bringing them something to drink, and helped her get it all set down on the table behind their lane carefully.

“How could I forget?” she said, feigning surprise. This guy was non-stop for a good while before a lot of other patrons asked the facilities management to ask him to either leave or quit being so damn creepy. He turned around and she instantly had to turn away to pour Wander his drink on the account that the pink suit definitely allowed for more attention to be called to him. Literally the question all the ladies at the center had asked, was it a bag of birdseed or…? and she unfortunately figured a safe bet would be to say it wasn’t birdseed.

“Sylvia, you flower, look at you. You’re down a few pounds, yeah?”

“Nope, but thanks for trying,” she replied to him dryly. This idiot may have had a smile wider than Wander’s but it was predatory and full of sharpness. It didn’t falter at her comment.

He flexed a bit, his pectorals twitching. “You decided to come back out from hiding after the tennis thing, that’s pretty admirable of you.”

She put her hands on her hips. “We’ve got a pretty good gig now. It keeps us busy. Heard they’re finally giving you the chance to teach some classes.”

“Spin classes. I hate that stuff but you know me, gotta keep moving somehow. What brings you to the bowling alley? A little weekend fun? You know you could just call me up. We could, uh, stack some pins. Get some position practice in.”

“Finger holes, balls, innuendo, haha,” Sylvia said. “I get it. It’s gross. You’re gross. We’re here to join league play. Why are _you_ even here?” She looked over her shoulder as Hater and the Watchdogs on his team filed down to use the lanes to their left. Thank Grop. The lesser of the two evils here was Peepers and she actually found herself unable to wait to strike up a conversation with that nerdlord. “You don’t seem like the type to bowl, at all.”

Awesome pulled his ball out of its bag, a pretty, glittery and sparkly number in purple. “Oh. My mother needed a… sub on her team for a season or a few,” he said, pausing appropriately, or rather, inappropriately. “So I filled in. Played both teams for a while.”

“Flarping hell, will you cut it out?”

“And then I decided I wanted my own team,” he said without wavering at her complaint. “So here we are. You’ll remember Bradly, but I’ll be happy to introduce you to the others when they start to show up. See you in a bit when I’m all warmed up, lady.” He winked at her and stepped back to get a few practice throws in, licking the ball with his big flat tongue as he did.

She silently hoped she could contain her anger for the evening, but then jumped as there was a loud bellow from the next lane over and a flash of green light. She turned around to see Hater’s bowling ball suspended in the air above the lane a few feet, him heaving as if he’d just thrown it and was surprised that it didn’t go as far at all as he had been expecting it to and fizzling a bit with residual electric energy, and Wander, staring back past her at the Cube at the front desk, glowing faintly with that same green light, which she turned around to look at, too. The PA system crackled to life, interrupting the song that had been playing, and there was a reverberating yet urgent hum that reminded players of the safety rules of the joint, and that they were to be followed, no exceptions. Peepers came out from the bar, receipt in hand and a disappointed look on his face.

The ball was lowered and brought back down to the return and set there carefully. It stopped glowing. Hater sat down to tie his shoes back up again, grumbling. Wander shook the hands of the Watchdogs and came back to sit down at their score station quietly.

“I was just tryin’ to talk to him about joinin’ their team,” her little orange roommate said. “He let the ball go too late because I distracted him.”

She looked back at Peepers, who made a confused gesture at her.

She could only shrug. This was going to be an interesting talk.


End file.
